Murder in the Gallowgate by Daniel Sellers

Author:Daniel Sellers [Sellers, Daniel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-11-14T16:00:00+00:00

3.14 p.m.

They’d managed to bag a bigger room at HQ for the second press conference. It was a good job: fifteen minutes before they were due to start, the place was already heaving. A fractious queue of reporters had formed in the corridor outside.

Lola stood at the back, with Deborah Truebig, the senior comms officer, scanning the throng for familiar faces. The TV and radio news were well represented, and a lot of the print media. She couldn’t see the one face she was looking for.

‘DI Harris?’ said a voice. Lola turned. The face was right beside her.

‘Shuna,’ Lola said pleasantly.

‘It is something to do with Malcolm Gemmell, isn’t it?’ the reporter said, quietly.

‘What is?’ Lola stepped apart from Deborah Truebig so that Shuna Frain would come with her. She didn’t want comms getting wind of this just yet.

‘MacAteer’s murder. I’m right, aren’t I?’

‘I can’t speculate—’

‘Yes you can! We all can.’

Lola recognised the implied threat. The two women stared hard at each other.

‘Okay,’ Lola said. ‘How about we have a bit of a chat, you and me. After this. Understand what I’m saying?’

Shuna Frain smiled that wee smile of hers and nodded. ‘That if I’m a good wee girl and don’t ask any awkward questions in public you’ll shout me a coffee and a flapjack?’

‘You can ask as many questions as you like, Shuna,’ Lola said. ‘But I’m sure you’d rather only you heard the answers.’

Shuna Frain pursed her lips. ‘Sounds cosy.’

‘It will be.’ Lola smiled and Shuna Frain trotted off to find a seat.

Lola tried to suppress the antipathy she felt towards the woman over the Pierce confrontation. It was hardly the reporter’s fault that Lola had misread the situation. Pierce had a right to feel aggrieved at her misplaced accusation. Not that Lola was going to let the turn of events upend her long game. In fact, she’d already booked a half-hour ‘informal consultation’ with HR on Wednesday morning.

‘All okay?’ Deborah Truebig said, coming over, all steely eyed and suspicious.

‘Think so,’ Lola breezed.

Lola considered Deborah to be one of those territorial comms people from the same mould as the individual she’d encountered at the council. She and Deborah had had a few heated discussions in their time.

Deborah eyed her. ‘Time to make a start, don’t you think?’

Lola ducked out of the conference room and headed down the side corridor and into the wee anteroom. Kirstie was in there with Sandy MacAteer’s brother Hector and the MacAteers’ family liaison officer.

‘Ready?’ she asked Hector MacAteer.

‘Let’s just get on with it, shall we?’ He was a stocky man with thinning hair and a thinner temper.

‘I’ll go into the room first, as we discussed,’ Lola began. ‘You next, Mr MacAteer. DC Campbell will follow us out, but it’ll just be you and me on the platform.’

She opened the door and heard the crowd hush. She stepped out, eyes forward, and made her way steadily to the blue cloth-covered table at the front of the conference room, trusting that Hector MacAteer would be behind her.

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